Gierkink: Ballade Stakes is wide-open

Saturday, May 3, preview

The third race is the first route race of the meet, a $25,000 starter allowance that should be dominated by winter-raced horses.

Chief Thundercloud is a standout in the Beyer Speed Figure department and will be favored off a close second to champion Pender Harbour in a seven-furlong money allowance here April 18. He was previously third in a two-turn starter at Parx for trainer Shane Learn, who has secured leading rider Luis Contreras for the mount.

Binks Forest ran consistently well throughout the winter at Tampa Bay Downs for trainer Mike Wright, who has several runners from that Florida track in the entries.

The $125,000 Ballade, a six-furlong stakes for Ontario-sired females, is wide-open. Only four of the 12 entrants have started this year. Silent Star and Hurricane Lorraine look best among that quartet. Stakes winners Bear’s Gem, who won last year’s Ballade, Moonlit Beauty, Strut the Course, Laughing Falcon, and I’m a Kittyhawk are all on the comeback trail.

Unless the inside is the place to be, I fancy the 2013 Ballade runner-up, Dance to the Moon, who has worked quickly and can acquit herself well off a layoff. Woodbine’s leading bug, Sheena Ryan, will ride Dance to the Moon without her apprentice allowance, starting from the outside post.

In the sixth race, Proroguing could outrun the probable favorite, Marten Lake, who is a bounce prospect in the six-furlong Ontario-sired allowance. Proroguing is being reunited with Eurico Rosa Da Silva, who got kicked just before he was supposed to ride him April 26, when Patrick Husbands subbed in and guided him to a wide runner-up finish.